Guiding Hands

When you hear the name Leonardo da Vinci you automatically think “Genius” with a capital “G.” Such Genius that he seemingly came from nowhere to walk among us. Science fiction writers love to imagine Leonardo as a brother from another planet or a time-traveling tourist from the future. The High Museum of Art’s exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of the Genius (open until February 21, 2010) restores the Genius to his own place and time without diminishing him, as if that were possible. We may stand upon the shoulders of giants such as da Vinci, but da Vinci had shoulders to stand on as well. This exhibition gives names to those guiding hands that helped da Vinci reach his first heights. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Guiding Hands."

[Image: Andrea del Verrocchio (Italian, 1435-1488) and Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452-1519), Beheading of St. John the Baptist, from the altar of the Baptistery with scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist, 1477-1478 (payments until 1483), silver, 12 1/8 x 16 ½ inches. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence. Photo: Antonio Quattrone, 2009. Courtesy Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore.]

[Many thanks to The High Museum of Art for providing me with the image above and to Yale University Press for providing me with a review copy of Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of Sculpture.]

Immortal Beloved

As a young apprentice to Andrea del Verrochio, Leonardo da Vinci was as famous for his artistic talent as for his personal beauty. Born April 15, 1452, da Vinci seemed like an angelic figure straight out of the Bible, which led Verrochio to use him as the model for his statue of David (above, from 1473-1475). As David, the young da Vinci stands triumphant over the decapitated head of Goliath, just as within a decade or two he would stand triumphant over the artistic and scientific worlds of Florence. More than five hundred years later, we still find ourselves fascinated by the persona of da Vinci, who seems more divine than human. One of my favorite episodes of the original Star Trek series, titled "Requiem for Methuselah," featured a character named Flint, who was immortal and had been several famous figures throughout Earth history, including da Vinci. It was as good an explanation as any for da Vinci’s magical capacity to appear as a being from another world and time. Just as Leonardo took the measure of man in his iconic drawing known as the Vitruvian Man, other artists have tried to take the measure of da Vinci throughout the centuries.

Even during his lifetime, da Vinci stood at the head of the class. When Raphael painted his School of Athens in 1511, he chose to use da Vinci’s face for that of Plato (detail above). Raphael used the likeness of many contemporary artists for The School of Athens, including his own and that of Michelangelo, but Raphael set Leonardo as Plato center stage. Plato points up to illustrate his philosophy based on the abstract world, whereas Aristotle beside him points down to the Earth, the source of his thinking. Leonardo might also be seen as pointing home considering how heavenly his contemporaries saw him. In his Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari wrote of Leonardo thirty years after his death in glowing terms that robbed him of all humanity, thus helping establish the magical aura surrounding da Vinci ever since. Vasari ranks Michelangelo as the apex of artistry, but Leonardo comes a close second. In fact, it might be this divine quality of da Vinci’s that earns him the silver medal, whereas Michelangelo’s sweat and toil helped bring him the gold. As with all depictions of genius, it’s easy to think that Leonardo’s gifts were heaven sent and came easily to him. We fail to see all the hours of thought and observation that went into the ability to paint the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.

Unhappy with the treatment he was receiving in Italy, Leonardo left for France near the end of his life. Francis I adopted Leonardo as a kind of pet—the resident genius who would amuse the court. (Leonardo brought the Mona Lisa with him to France, which is how it became the property of France rather than Italy.) When Leonardo died, it only added to the myth. Although it probably didn’t play out that way, artists depicted Leonardo’s final moments as the final bow of blood royalty to the true royalty of genius. In Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ 1818 version of The Death of Leonardo (above), Francis I tenderly embraces the withered da Vinci taking his last breath. We still pay homage to Leonardo today, from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to The Da Vinci Code. In addition to being among the greatest minds of all time, da Vinci belonged to the greatest procrastinator club, leaving countless projects incomplete and ideas unfulfilled. Even at a ripe old age, Leonardo’s presence spoke of possibility, albeit often unrealized. That possibility still attracts all eyes to him.

The Challenger

When Gian Lorenzo Bernini began sculpting his David (above) in 1623, he must have felt like the Biblical David standing there in the Valley of Elah facing down the Goliaths of the Renaissance. Born December 7, 1598, Bernini and the rest of the Baroque generation worked in the shadow of Michelangelo et al. As Bernini chipped away at the marble, images of Donatello’s David of the 1440s, Verrocchio’s David of 1473-1475, and, standing tallest of all, Michelangelo’s David of 1501-1504 had to have been in his mind. Donatello and Verrocchio chose to show David victorious, standing over the decapitated head of his vanquished foe. Michelangelo showed David measuring up the competition and summoning up the courage to fight. Bernini daringly chooses to show the moment of action itself, when David rears back to sling the fateful stone. David’s mouth tenses in the moment of concentration, a beautifully realistic, natural touch that humanizes the mythic young shepherd. Where his predecessors posed the young hero, Bernini springs him into action. By sculpting his David, Bernini threw down the gauntlet at the feet of the greats of the past and announced himself as a worthy challenger to the title of greatest sculptor of his time.

From the time he came to Rome with his father at the age of seven, Bernini knew he would be a great artist someday. The painter Annibale Carracci first recognized Bernini’s blooming talent and clued Pope Paul V and other potential patrons in on the next great thing. Bernini’s promise soon flowered into realized works of art that revolutionized sculpture with their drama and breathtaking realism. The Ecstasy of St. Theresa (above, from 1647-1652) added a whole new dimension to religious art—sex. The expression on St. Theresa of Avila’s face is purely orgasmic as the presence of God literally pierces her soul. The young angel beside St. Theresa seems more like Cupid with his arrow of love than a messenger of God. It’s truly amazing the level of sensuousness Bernini achieves in the drapery of the saint’s robes and how they ebb and flow around her body, as if they conducted the euphoric electricity emanating from her. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing this sculpture in person, but just judging from photographs of it in place in the Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, the sexiness of the sculpture set in a church might make me blush.

Bernini’s monument to Blessed Ludovica Albertoni (above, from 1671-1674) in the chapel of the San Francesco a Ripa in Rome repeats the ecstasy of St. Theresa years later but actually amplifies the sexual component. The life-size sculpture shows Ludovica Albertoni on her deathbed, simultaneously suffering the final pangs before death and enjoying the first stirrings of divine acceptance. Again, religious ecstasy bears a great resemblance to sexual orgasm. By placing Ludovica on a bed, the implication becomes even clearer. Ludovica looks like any one of several Roman or Greek goddesses enjoying the caresses of another diety. Beneath a mountain of sculpted robes, Bernini reveals naked physical and spiritual pleasure. As with the drapery around St. Theresa, Ludovica’s robes seem vibrantly alive, quivering with the pleasure she is feeling. As with his David, Bernini depicts his figure in a moment of action, a moment of becoming. David throws the stone and is transformed from simple shepherd to prophet and king. St. Theresa and Ludovica accept the hand of God upon them and are transformed into saints. By showing these individuals at the moment of transformation, Bernini transforms sculpture and transformed himself from a prodigy of great promise into an artist who could take on all comers.

Teacher’s Pet

It must be a complex set of feelings for any teacher to see his student surpass him or her—a mixture of pride and, hopefully less, envy. When Andrea del Verrocchio painted the Baptism of Christ (above, from 1474-1475) for the monastery of San Salvi in Florence, he delegated some of the “minor” elements to students in his workshop. Little did Verrocchio, who died October 7, 1488, know that those “minor” elements would soon overshadow the work of the supposed master. Born sometime around 1435, Verrocchio assigned the painting of the angel on the left holding Christ’s clothes to his star pupil, Leonardo da Vinci. (Legend has it that the angel on the right was assigned to another promising student, Sandro Botticelli.) Soon viewers found themselves captivated more by that angelic face and the landscape behind the angel (also by da Vinci) rather than the central scene of Jesus’ baptism. A star was “born” in this painting, and da Vinci soon found his way to the top of the Renaissance art world. Master painters usually delegated parts of commissions to their assistants, saving the choice parts for themselves. Usually, those supporting elements go unnoticed, and the names of those assistants are forgotten. In this one case, however, the name of the master Verrocchio has been largely forgotten and da Vinci remains the household name.

Verrocchio didn’t necessary upstage his painting master, Fra Filippo Lippi, but he did learn enough to break out on his own and start his own workshop. After training to be a goldsmith as a young man, Verrocchio learned the fundamentals of painting from Lippi and the art of sculpture from Donatello. Although Verrocchio split time between painting and sculpture evenly up until the mid 1470s, he still managed to paint in a sculptor-like style. Verrocchio’s Madonna and Child (above, 1470) shows a great grasp of the depth and weight of the figures, as if they were statues. However, they are statuesque without being stiff, imbued with the humanizing psychological depth that characterized the entire Renaissance. Verrocchio clearly enjoys painting the drapery and veils of the Virgin Mary and the Christ child, showing off his ability to render fabrics convincingly. The landscape behind them, perhaps done by Verrocchio or assigned to an assistant, followed the conventions of the time but also impressed in the young da Vinci’s mind the value of such little details, which he placed not only in his religious subjects but even in secular portraits such as the Mona Lisa.

When Verrocchio tackled the story of David and Goliath in his sculpture The Young David (above, from 1473-1475), he clearly acknowledged his debt to and announced his distance from Donatello, whose own David set the current standard for that Biblical hero. Donatello’s David stands over the severed giant’s head nude, his helmet worn at a jaunty angle, one hand cockily on his hip, and a foot placed triumphantly on Goliath’s head. Verrocchio’s David plays it cooler, his head uncovered, his body covered by a simple yet elegant toga, a hand placed on his hip in a relaxed but not cocky way, and a foot placed respectfully beside his vanquished foe’s head and not on it. Donatello’s David seems ready to talk trash while Verrocchio’s version exudes quiet confidence. When Michelangelo sculpted his definitive David, he fused elements of these two predecessors together. Depicting David before the battle, Michelangelo sculpted him in the nude like Donatello and with a clear sexual energy like Donatello, but the overall mood is more like Verrocchio—calm, quiet confidence in who he is and what he can do. Perhaps Verrocchio the teacher shared that same steady confidence in his abilities even as he watched a new generation of genius grow under his watch and leave him behind.